Not Even Once
by ParadiseAvenger
Summary: Meth Awareness. Part One of Three. Montana Meth. "This is what I said when she told me she was going to try Meth." Nothing, silence. It all started on the night of the rave. This is how it happened... Dark. Partial AU. Adult Themes. Original one-shot.


Alright, first of all, this is a **Meth Awareness** one-shot.

Everyone MUST go to this website! **www. montana meth. org** If anyone is too lazy to remove the spaces, there's a link in my profile. But I have personally SEEN the sick shit Meth does to people. _Watch the commercials, read the print ads, and look at the pictures! _

And by all means, **spread the word**!

As you can tell, I am very passionate and righteous about this subject.

**WARNING: DARK FIC!**

**Options at the end if you can make it that far**, but there's no _nice_ way to write this. _Meth does some fucked up shit to your world!_

…

This is a short Danny Phantom one-shot because I needed the character background between the three friends. Sora and Kairi and Riku have some background, but not enough to really make the story meaningful. (The opening is also very similar to the most recent commercials made by Montana Meth Project because I really liked it, but after that it's all me.) I might dig out some creativity and do one for Tsubasa and Kingdom Hearts, but for now this is all I've got.

X X X

_This is the joint where we used to hang out._

The Nasty Burger sign was half out. A few neon letters flickered hopelessly, buzzing and whining like something from a horror movie. It looked like it should be saying _No Vacancies_ above a disgusting seedy motel, but it's always looked that way. Yet, happy teenagers still bustled in and out of the swinging glass doors without a care in the world. No one cared anymore. Laughter owned the wind, leaves rustled in the beautiful trees, and the sky was crystal-clear opium blue.

_This is the place where she first tried it._

The rave in the old rundown warehouse was aglow with pulsing strobes and black lights. People were laughing and jumping, dancing and moshing, screaming and singing. The music was like a second heartbeat, pulsing and throbbing. Bodies practically shook with the force of the bass and everyone was dancing, high and happy. One by one, the lights went out until there was nothing but darkness left. That was all there was anymore, after all.

_This is what she used to pick imaginary bugs out of her skin._

He was looking for her again, searching her room in her broken home even though he knew she wasn't there anymore. The faucet was dripping sluggishly, echoing. Bloodied razors were lying on the edge of the sink. Blood had gathered like thick red wax around the drain. There were nail clippers and tweezers lying out, all gory and blood-smattered. He didn't know what she had been using them for. Only that her skin was coming apart.

_This is where she forced Tucker smoke it with her._

It was the playground where they had all first met. No one went there anymore. The swings were rusted and creaky and the vibrant plastic equipment in the new playgrounds was still old baking metal here. The slide loomed into the sky like an old cold claw, sweeping down to earth like a suicidal dive. The merry-go-round wouldn't spin anymore. The trees shaded everything in a cloak of darkness, taking it away from the real world. This place… was practically a nightmare now.

_This is where her dealer raped her._

It used to be a hospital, but it was nothing anymore. The walls were coated in peeling paint, the windows were thick with dust and grime, and the sink in one of the haunted old bathrooms was continuously dripping thick brown water. The place was littered with forgotten paraphernalia from another century and the current hell in this one. They said ghosts roamed those halls, but it was really just the spirits of the people that she left behind… including herself.

_This is where she beat up her best friend._

Under the bleachers where they used to sit and watch football games on Friday nights, a few beams of dirty light were slanting in. There were footprints in the old dried mud and the impression of his body where she had thrown him down in her paranoia. He could never have brought himself to hurt her, but she could hurt him. Oh yes, she could hurt him. But it wasn't her fault, he told everyone, she didn't know what she was doing. Right?

_This is where she started selling her body._

Finally, a home for the Nasty Burger's flickering broken-down neon sign. It had one of those big dumb green motel signs with the big burned-out letters and no real name, just one of those anonymous places where people like her could disappear. It had a creaky iron staircase and wobbly little balconies with twisted wrought-iron rails. Inside the rooms were sagging queen-sized beds covered in hideous spreads with who-knew-what caked on them. The sheets were scented with sex and sweat and burning. Light came in through the grimy curtains and water ran in the shower. There was more blood and flesh in the sink.

_And this is what I said when she told me she was going to try Meth._

Someone—her best friend—was there on the phone with her, planning their escape to the rave that weekend, but there was nothing but the crackle of silence on the other end of the phone line. He didn't say anything.

"Danny?"

Nothing, silence, nothing…

…

It was hard to believe, anymore.

But, they used to be happy. They used to share cheesy fries and veggie burgers and get milkshakes after football games on Friday nights, but then everything changed after the night of the rave. Nothing was good anymore. Everything was different, worse, terrible, awful, hideous, broken…

Tucker was in rehab and he was the lucky one.

Danny was broken, out looking for her.

And Sam… Sam was dead.

…

The warehouse looked like a ghost house from the outside, but lights burned inside. (The lights burned but no one was home.) The beams of colored sugary light played on the big grimy broken windows and pulsing music drifted out. It looked like something out of some kind of movie.

The rave was nothing like Danny had expected. It was loud and flaming bright. Someone was standing on stage, spinning an array of candied lights so that she looked like all the holidays mixed together. Her partner was all gauzy goddess fabric like butterfly wings, all papery and fake. People were slamming into him from all sides, bouncing him off of Sam and other people. They had already lost Tucker in the crowd, shouting over the music somewhere behind them. The strobe lights made his head swim and he couldn't hear his own voice over the music. His heartbeat felt drowned out by the throb of the music.

"Sam!" Danny shouted as she slipped easily through the crowd, getting farther and farther away from him. "Sam, wait!"

"I love you!" Some girl was sticking to Danny, hanging off his shoulders, breathing in his ear. Her body was burning up, smoldering hot like she had a fever. She was high on Ecstasy, voice sugary sweet against the shell of his ear as her hands pawed down his chest. "I love you," she said again.

Danny had lost sight of Sam. She was somewhere in the throng of dancing people, looking like every other Goth girl though she had never looked that way to him before. She always stood out to him, but here… She wore too much black and her purple blended in with the ultraviolet black lights. He couldn't see her.

"Sam!" Danny shouted, reaching out through the people around him.

That girl was still on him. She was holding him back, laughing and crying out, clutching at his shoulders and shirt. He shook her off, hearing her make a sound that was pure disappointment and then say again to someone else, "I love you!"

"Sam!"

Danny was only in time to see her put the pretty spun-sugar fake-looking glass pipe to her lips, inhale in a way that didn't seem possible with the glass bubble on the end, and blow out white steam. He never saw her eyes darken, dilate. "Sam!" Then, she was all smiles and cheer, face glowing with confidence that he had never seen in her before.

"Come on, Danny," she laughed. "Let's dance. Don't look so glum." She grabbed his hands and spun him around, head tipped back and grinning from ear to ear. Her lips were pursed, painted glossy purple, and her onyx hair was feathering on her pale skin. She looked beautiful, but…

Her flesh felt hot and sweaty and he almost wanted to pull away. "Sam," he murmured, voice lost to the music.

"Don't worry. I'm only going to do Meth once."

That was what she said to him.

Then she was lost in the throng of beautiful people and he was left standing there alone until Tucker finally caught up with him, found him in the mess that was this party. Tucker felt cold, the chill from his fingers was seeping into Danny's flesh through his clothes. Danny couldn't speak and Tucker didn't say anything.

Life went on, but it was all over… just like that… like the snap of fingers, like the flick of a light switch, like the breaking of bones.

It was all over.

She was all over.

Sam was already dead.

…

It had been almost a month since the rave and Sam was steadily slipping away. They saw less and less of her. Her grades had dropped. Her skin looked pale and waxy, washed-out and ashen, and she looked like she hadn't been sleeping. She had lost weight, clothes hanging off of her body. Then, she just stopped coming at all.

Sam slipped away from them.

Danny felt sick a lot.

Tucker was losing his cheer.

…

It was Friday. The morning dawned grey and rainy with a thick blanket out clouds covering the sky, hiding the sun. The pavement was damp and puddles reflected the heavy hideous grey sky like some kind of impending doom. The air smelled fertile though, like flowers could be grown in it, like soot, like moist earth. The scent was like a silver lining, making the world seem less bleak. In the distance, the thick black storm clouds crackled with lightning and claps of thunder.

Sam hadn't been in school for almost a week.

Danny and Tucker were getting worried.

"I have a doctor's appointment after school," Tucker repeated as he and Danny headed to sixth period. "I really wish I could go—"

"Tucker, we've gone through this three times," Danny said with a heavy sigh. "I'll stop by her house on my way home and check on her. I can go by myself, honest." He pulled the door to the classroom open, allowing a few girls in before him and Tucker.

"I know, but—"

"You're not being a bad friend. You have an appointment. I'll go."

Tucker didn't say anything, just looked at the floor and shuffled to his seat.

Their last class seemed to drag on. All Danny did was stare at the clock and Tucker clicked his pen restlessly. A few people around them cast dirty looks their way, annoyed by the clicking of the pen and Danny's absently tapping fingers. The teacher called on Danny a few times, got no response, and finally gave up.

At last, the bell ran and school let out.

Danny and Tucker left together, but turned in different directions once they got off campus. Tucker got into his mother's car and Danny headed off to Sam's house. If he had known then what he was going to find, maybe he would've brought Tucker along with him. Then again, maybe he would have rather gone by himself.

Sam's house was a beautiful old-fashion redbrick Colonial with white shutters and trim and a glossy black door with a big brass lion's head doorknocker. Danny knocked and waited patiently for someone to open the door. Sam's mother, a surprisingly prim and proper lady with rich honey-blonde hair to Sam's darkness and violet, answered the door. Normally, she wasn't very happy to see him, but today his presence appeared to make her nervous.

"D-Danny?" she asked.

"Hi, Mrs. Manson. Is Sam in?" Danny asked, ever polite and sweet. "She hasn't been in school that past few days and I wanted to check on her."

Mrs. Manson shuffled nervously, hem of her pink and white dress touching the floor. It looked like a nightgown, but she didn't look as if she had been sleeping. "I… I don't know where Samantha is."

"You don't know?" Something must have shown in his face.

Mrs. Manson paled and closed over the door as if to hide behind it. "She went out," she said almost nervously. There was a small tremor in her voice. "I don't know where she is," she said finally. Then, she slammed the door in Danny's face.

The bronze lion head glared at him fiercely as if banishing him from the doorway.

Disturbed by her actions and words, Danny knocked again, never one to be pushed away when his friends were concerned.

Mrs. Manson opened the door again, but seemed shocked to find him still standing there. Her eyes were glassy, swollen, and welling with tears. "Danny," she croaked. There was something horrible lurking in her voice, fear and horror and pain.

"Where is Sam?" He hated the tremor in his own voice. "Where is she?"

A sob wracked Mrs. Manson's body and she opened the door to him, turning her face away. With a shaking hand, she just pointed towards the stairs, towards Sam's bedroom. As he passed her, Danny saw a bruise around her wrist, a handprint. It was too small to be from her husband. It was more the perfect size to be… Sam's hand? A knot formed in his throat, choking him.

"Where is she?" he found himself repeating.

But Mrs. Manson only collapsed into hopeless sobbing. She didn't even point towards the stairs anymore, just crumpled in on herself like wet paper. Danny bolted for the stairs, suddenly inexplicably terrified for Sam and her family. He passed Mr. Manson on the stairs, but the man didn't even spare him a passing glance. He looked catatonic with deep dark bruise-like circles under his red-rimmed eyes. His normally pressed clothes were wrinkled.

Danny slammed open Sam's bedroom door, crying out her name, but he didn't get very far. He tripped over something spread out on the floor in the dark, something that clattered and spun, and fell on his face. Sam's blinds were pulled and her room was pitch black. Fumbling for the light switch, Danny flooded the room with light. Other than the fact that her room was messy—clothes spread all over the floor, makeup out on the vanity dresser, bed unmade—her room looked relatively normal.

Sam was nowhere to be seen.

He dashed to the bathroom, flipping on that light as well, and immediately collapsed to his knees, choking and gagging. He didn't recognize the little animal sounds that were coming from his own throat. Spread out across the vanity was a sickening array of bloodied things. She had taken apart her razor and the three blades were scattered across the vanity. One was laying in the sink in a puddle of blood and tattered flesh. The other two were laying side by side on the rim. There were tweezers with hair and flesh caked in them, nail clippers with hunks of flesh caught in the blades, and wads of bloodied tissues with more skin and hair in them. The cream-colored vanity was stained with so much blood. It was even running down the cabinets under the sink. It looked as if someone had stood at this sink for hours, picking themselves apart.

Half-sick, Danny clutched his stomach, trying to get a hold of himself. He took a few deep tremulous breaths.

This must be some cruel trick.

This couldn't be _Sam_… her room, her bathroom, her house, her parents…

It must have been a trick, some fucking sick trick. It couldn't be her!

Sam was only going to smoke Meth once.

She wasn't going to become one of those pictures he saw in movies and magazines—faces torn apart, sores and puss, tattered flesh, picking themselves apart… _addicted_, dying.

Danny stumbled to his feet, gripping the vanity to pull himself up. His hand stuck in the dried blood and the tweezers clattered into the sink so loudly that the sound startled him. Jolting, he bolted from the Manson's house like a frightened animal. Mrs. Manson was still weeping on the floor and Mr. Manson was still staring at nothingness when Danny ran out.

He wanted to call Tucker, but he couldn't…

He just couldn't.

…

Tucker was sitting on a swing in their favorite playground when they were kids. The swing creaked as he moved like some ancient animal, unhappy to budge. A cold wind howled through the looming slide and whistled through Tucker's jacket, chilling him to the bone. Behind him, the dark strip of trees thrashed and moaned.

Danny was gone again.

Actually, Tucker didn't see much of Danny anymore. Danny was always gone, out looking for Sam, never giving up. He looked like a shambling zombie fresh from the grave. His skin had always been pale, but now he looked dead. His flesh was stretched over his bones so that he had the visage of a skeleton. His dark obsidian hair was lackluster. His body was down to the bare minimum, just skin and bones with that thin bloodless flesh. Worse, his baby blue eyes that had always held so much life and promise were more like glass marbles than eyes anymore. They were empty.

There was rustling in the bushes behind Tucker, but he ignored it. It was probably just a stray dog. There seemed to be a lot of them now.

"Hey, Tucker…" a familiar voice rasped close to his ear.

He jolted, practically flying from the seat of the swing.

It was _Sam_!

And she looked like shit. Her dark hair hung in strings around her face, raggedly cut as if she had simply been ripping it out. Her mouth was chapped and bloody and she had sores in the corners of her lips. There was a place on her face where all the flesh had been torn away. She was covered in bruises, like she had been beaten up, and her clothing hung off her skeleton thin body. Her eyes were what shocked him the most. The amethyst orbs were half-crazed, bestial.

Danny looked like a ghost, but Sam…

Sam looked like a monster.

"Sam!" Tucker gasped out. "You scared me. Where have you been?"

She slid into the swing he had leaped from and began to sway back and forth. "You know, _around_…" she said. "Trying new things… broadening my horizons…"

"We've all been worried sick. Your parents are a wreck. Danny's a wreck. He's out looking for you right now."

She was quiet for a moment. "You want to know the truth, Tucker?"

No, he wasn't sure he did, but his mouth was ahead of his heart. "What?"

"I've been smoking Meth. It's _good_."

"Sam, that shit is bad for you. It has Drain-O in it."

"Have you ever tried it?"

"No!"

"Then you don't know how good it is…" She pulled out a small glass pipe from her tattered coat pocket, put some crystals in it, flicked her lighter, and inhaled with her mouth at the tip. Then, she blew it out in Tucker's face. It smelled disgusting, like something dead, but… that could have been her breath. Her teeth were yellow and sick-looking. "Try it, Tucker."

"No, Sam. You should come with me. There are people that can help you. We can get you into a clinic. Danny and I will stay by you, I swear."

She stood up, licking her lips, biting the sore at the corner of her mouth. "Okay, Tucker, okay." Then, she held out the pipe to him. "Try it. Smoke it with me. If you still think it's bad, I'll go with you."

"Sam—"

"Come on, Tuck, I'm your friend. Just smoke it and then I'll go with you. I promise," she said. Blood rolled down her chin.

At that moment, Tucker just wanted to get her someplace safe so badly… He wanted Danny to stop being out in dangerous places at night looking for her. He wanted her parents to stop crying. He wanted to stop fearing that she was dead. He just wanted her safe, so…

Tucker took the pipe from Sam's cold hands and watched her heat the drug until it sizzled like something burning. Then, he put it to his lips and tried to inhale. It was difficult and it was just a small puff. It tasted horrible—chemical and bloody and rotten—and then, his head spun and the ground rushed up to meet him. He saw the pipe go bouncing off into the high brown grass, saw Sam's boots as she went to get it, and then his world went black. He remembered calling out her name, but when he woke up it wasn't to Sam.

It was to a haunting white hospital room with Danny slumped at his bedside, asleep, looking pale and half-dead and more than a little hurt. He could hear his parents and the Mansons and the Fentons talking in the hallway, talking about Sam, but they sounded very far away. He couldn't make out what they were saying.

He was so tired.

But, above all, he wanted another hit.

…

Sam walked through the deserted derelict house, footsteps echoing. She was shaking so bad. She _needed_ another hit. The walls were closing in on her. And there was that itching, the horrible scrabbling itching feeling just beneath her skin, like bugs were crawling on her, like spider webs were clinging to her skin. She scratched her arm, feeling that if she could _just get a little bit deeper_ the itch would go away. Dried peeled paint crunched underfoot and she could hear the sink dripping somewhere. Hardly any light came in through the windows.

Finally, she saw the dark profile of her dealer just ahead of her in the hallway, leaning on the wall, looking as cool as the first time he had offered it to her. She felt him sucking her in. Don looked slick and sensual, all deep mocha-latte skin and dark hair and dark alluring eyes.

She hated blue eyes anymore.

"Hey, Don." Her voice came out sick and twisted and childish, like a lost little girl. She giggled at the thought and scratched the side of her neck, feeling wetness as flesh sloughed off. She wasn't a little girl anymore.

Fuck you, Mom and Dad!

Fuck you for never accepting me!

Fuck Tucker for not understanding!

Fuck Danny!

Fuck Danny…

She staggered over to Don, clutching at his coat, amazed at how sick and black her fingers looked. "Did you bring it?"

"Of course. Three grams for my best customer," Don said and looked down at her as if disgusted.

Sam giggled. "Three? How much?"

"For you…" Don wet his lips. "Free…"

Then, he attacked her.

The sick part was, she barely cared. If it got her Meth, he could do anything he wanted with her body.

She lay on that filthy floor, letting him kiss her and tear off her clothes. Don pulled down her jeans and her panties, tearing the elastic, and flung them. Then, he started clattering with his belt and chains, finally getting free. It felt like a long time to Sam while he did that. Then, he got between her legs and tore into her.

It hurt!

The pain was like nothing she had ever experienced in her life. The agony was white-hot, ripping through every molecule and fiber of her body, and worse yet… Don kept going. She realized she was losing her virginity here on the floor of a ramshackle abandoned house with a man she barely knew for Meth.

She dug her fingers into Don's shoulders and let out a scream of pain. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks, running her black makeup into bruise-like shadows. She was sobbing and whimpering and writhing in agony beneath him like a small animal pinned down in a corner.

He only laughed. "I love this business."

Sobbing and whimpering, Sam didn't taste Danny's name on her lips when she cried out. She only felt Don's kisses and his teeth and his dick deep inside her. She felt everything falling away, splintering like the pieces of a broken mirror and flying away like shooting stars. Then, he was hot inside her and something spilled out. He wiped himself off on her shirt as if she was used and discarded. Then, he dropped the bag of Meth on her bared stomach.

After that, she didn't care anymore.

…

Campus was practically deserted, just a few people still lingered with friends and relatives. The ground was thick with mud from the previous night's heavy rains. Birds were chirping though and the sun was shining. Everything seemed okay, but it wasn't.

School was out. Graduation. It didn't feel like anything walking across that stage, hearing the speeches about his class and his peers.

He had graduated. Barely.

But, he was _alone_.

Tucker was in rehab, getting over the Meth addiction Sam had given him.

No one had seen Sam in a few months and it had been almost six months since the rave.

Danny had started wishing that they had crashed that night. He wished that he had been crippled, that he had broken his neck, that he had been jumped. Anything to keep them from going—even if it put him in the hospital, even if it killed him—but…

_They hadn't crashed._

He was sitting on the bleachers, alone, staring at the brown dead football field. There were no cheerleaders practicing. He had lost his taste for watching them. He was always reminded of Sam's sour jokes about them and of Tucker's laugh when he failed at flirting with them. A lone leaf crackled in the corner of the bleachers.

It felt like fall, not summer.

The world felt dead.

Then, he heard a voice he recognized.

Sam's voice.

Danny was on his feet before he could even think about it and bolting down the steps. He skidded across the slick aluminum, nearly falling, but grabbing the railing and throwing himself down the stairs that led to the area that was below the bleachers. There was a lot of trash and mud there and probably a fair amount of money that he didn't care about, but someone else did…

Sam was on her knees in the mud, talking to herself, searching through the muck for loose change that people had dropped during games. Danny watched, dumbstruck and horrified, as she found and quarter and shoved it in her pocket. She made a sniveling sound, half a cry, half a whimper.

"Sam?" Danny whispered, hardly believing his eyes. He had spent so many nights out trolling the streets, looking for her under bridges and in junkie dens, praying she wouldn't float in on the tide, and here she was rooting through the mud beneath the bleachers outside of school. "Sam?"

Her head snapped up, eyes wide and bloodshot. She looked like hell. Her face was scratched and bruised and smeared with black makeup. Her lips split and swollen and bloody and chapped. She was covered in sores and scratches where her skin was ripped apart. Some of her dark hair was sticking in the wounds, thick with blood in other places. For a moment, she stared at him without seeming to recognize who he was and the recognition never came into her face. She leaped at him, eyes wide and tongue sticking out like some kind of crazed animal. She tackled him to the ground, ice-cold hand in his throat, holding him down while she dug into his pockets for his wallet. Finding it, she bolted away from him, tore the cash from it, and hurled his wallet back at him.

A picture of them before everything happened fell out.

She stepped on it in her haste.

Danny didn't care about the money or the picture. All he cared about was Sam. He got to his feet, arms out in a placating gesture, hoping she would recognize him even though he had changed, fallen apart. "Sam?" he whispered.

She stared at him, licked her lips, and muttered, "Get out of my way."

"Sam, it's Danny."

"Fuck you!" she screamed. Then, he saw that her pupils were dilated to the size of olives—all black, darkness, lost. "Get away from me!"

"Sam, please, I'm here to help."

"Get away! Get back!" She pulled out a switchblade form somewhere and flicked it out. Her hands were shaking, all of her was shaking. "I need a hit," she muttered. Then, she was screaming again, "Get the fuck back!"

Danny did step back, but she dove for him, all screaming rage and drug-crazed-frenzy. They slammed into the muddy ground, his body taking the brunt of the fall. He held on to her, refusing to let her go, wrapping both his arms around her. She was all skin and bones and ice-cold and shaking. Sam was screaming, struggling, howling, and beating at his face and chest with her balled fists. Then, suddenly, she tore into his shoulder with that knife, plunging deep over and over again.

Crying out in agony, Danny tried to hold on, but the pain made his grip weak. Anguished, he clutched his injured shoulder with his good hand and rolled onto his side in the mud, feeling it sucking at his body. He stared at her desperately with his baby blue eyes, pleading with her.

Sam wrestled away from him, winding up in a crouch with her white coughing chest heaving. "You," she panted, "You stay the fuck away from me."

"Please, don't go," he gasped out. He would've sat up and tried to get a hold of her again, but that knife was dangling from her fingers and dripping his blood. He knew she would hurt him. "Sam, don't go. Tucker's in rehab because of what you did to him. You could go, too. You could go with him. We could get you through this." He made a pained sound. "I'll stay with you."

She glared at him, eyes all darkness. "Fuck you," was all she said and then she turned away.

"Please!" The desperation was raw in his voice. "Please, Sam! It's Danny! We're friends!" His voice cracked. "It's Danny…"

Sam spat out, "I hate blue eyes!" with her back still to him. Then, without looking back, she walked away from him. Her footsteps were hollow as she clonked away overhead on the cheap aluminum bleachers. The sound was empty and hollow like his broken heart.

…

Now, all Danny had was a scar, an old wound where Sam used to be.

…

It was a cheap motel on Stark Street. Gangs shot each other up at night. Junkies shot themselves up at all hours of the day. Prostitutes sold their last worldly possessions when they could, alternating between time on their feet and time on their backs. There was a redhead, too young to be alone, standing on the corner smoking and waiting to get picked up by some john that would beat her and fuck her and pay her. There were urchins living in the gutters—street kids and runaways, the forgotten part of society.

Sam practically lived in the seedy motel, laying on her back with her legs spread and rarely wearing clothes. It wasn't like she needed them anyway. She only left to get more or left the bed to dig the bugs out of her face. They were crawling around beneath her skin, living in her head. She hated that, hated them. The only thing that gave her pleasure anymore was the Meth. It was euphoria and it made her walk on air. What brought her down was the men that sauntered through the door, slipping in to her and making wretched sounds, but they put money in her hand.

Outside, the wrought iron stairs were creaking. Someone was coming up.

There was a knock at Sam's door. She wrapped the sheet around her naked body and pulled it open.

Don was waiting, grinning and looking smug. "Hey babe," he said. "I got you a real treat."

Sam purred, stretching herself along the length of him, feeling his hardness through his clean jeans. She asked what it would take and he put his hand between her legs. Per usual, he took her hard and fast. It felt like he was bruising the inside of her. Who knew? Maybe he was.

He didn't lay with her. He gave her the drugs and took the money and left.

Sometimes, Sam wished he would stay with her.

Sometimes, she hated being alone in this hellhole.

But she didn't think of Danny or Tucker or who used to be Sam.

Alone, she sat up, sheets slipping from her shoulders. She rubbed the bites there and scratched away a bug, digging into her flesh. Then, she fetched her lighter and her glass pipe and smoked some more. Happy and content, she lay back against the sheets and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

When she woke up, it was to a pounding on the door. He was ugly and fat with a big hanging hairy gut and his left eye wandered as if it was disconnected from the rest of him. She took another man into her bed, letting him do whatever he wanted to her for fifty bucks. She hardly felt anything.

The high was too sweet.

After he left, she crawled into the shower, laying beneath the burning hot stream of water and watching the filth swirl down the drain for a long time. She wondered when the last time she showered was, but didn't think about it for too long. Getting out, she didn't bother drying off. She walked naked to her filthy stinking bed, lay down, and slept again.

She never thought of Tucker or Danny or her parents or getting clean.

Fuck Tuck!

Fuck Mom and Dad!

Fuck running water and indoor plumbing!

Fuck clinics!

Fuck Danny!

Fuck Danny…

This was her life.

Wake up, get fucked, smoke some, enjoy, sleep, pick the bugs out of her face, fuck more, sometimes smoke and sometimes sleep, enjoy it if she smoked, pick the bugs out of her fingers, bleed, smoke, fuck, sleep. And the cycle continued on and on and on.

That was her life now.

…

Blistery winter winds were blowing in, bringing snow and ice and grey washed-out depressing weather.

Tucker was going to be getting out soon and it was going to be hard for him with such depressing weather, but Tuck had been clean for almost a year now. He was doing okay, but no one wanted to hire someone who had rehab on his resume.

But he was getting along alright.

_Hop along, Cassidy._

He talked to Danny at least once a week, listening to his friend's voice dropping and growing darker and more depressing. Sometimes, Tucker loved the safety and brightness and support of the rehab clinic, but he had to get on with his life soon. He had to get back out there into the big wide world.

_Shit._

He was scared.

He was scared that he wouldn't be able to stay clean.

He was afraid he would become a junkie.

He was afraid he would be like Sam.

He slapped that thought away, slamming the iron doors in his brain behind it. He couldn't think like that. He had to think he was going to make it, think positive, or he wouldn't survive.

And he had to think of Danny. Danny was out looking for her, still… again… as usual. Danny _needed_ to find her, to think she was okay.

Tucker looked around his room, making sure he had everything, grabbed his suitcase, and then stepped into the canary-yellow hallway. A few people hugged him goodbye—his group therapist, a girl who had come in the same time as him, a young man who reminded him a lot of Danny. But then, Tucker had to leave it all behind.

His parents were waiting.

He was going home.

…

Everyone said he should stop looking for her.

They said she wasn't coming back.

They said she was probably dead.

He _hated_ all those words.

Danny slouched deeper into his trench coat as he walked down the street, hunched against the icy-cold wind. Winter was coming and it was going to be brutal. He hoped wherever Sam was, she was at least warm.

Sam had been gone for a year and a half now.

It was sick really.

She had gotten Tucker addicted. She had stolen from Danny and stabbed him. She had had no qualms with hurting him, her best friend. She ran from him. It was clear she didn't want help, that she didn't care anymore, but Danny still thought about her.

She was his best friend. Still.

He hoped that she was alive and doing alright, but he tried to keep the hope to a minimum. He hoped she was warm because he knew she wasn't safe. He hoped she wasn't pregnant because he knew she was selling herself. He hoped he would find her one day and manage to bring her back.

He hoped a lot of things.

The first beautiful frosty flakes drifted down from the cold ash-grey sky. Danny stopped, looking up and catching the flakes on his face. He enjoyed the sensation of the ice melting on the heat of his skin, water beading up and rolling down his neck like the tears he couldn't shed.

He wasn't ready to let her go.

He wouldn't admit she was gone.

Every day he blamed himself, hated himself. He remembered the night before the rave. He remembered her saying that she was going to try Meth. He remembered his silence. He remembered not saying anything or doing anything to stop her.

"_Danny?"_ she had said.

And he hadn't said anything. Nothing… silence… nothing…

X X X

**We have some options for an ending here. **

**1.) Either this can be it, very **dark** and **depressing** ending, but also very **_true_**. Not a lot of people manage to quit Meth. They just sink and sink and sink until they're gone and you wonder what happened to them, but you already kind of know. **In that case, it's over here.

**2.) Danny can find her and bring her back and she can go through rehab, but** fail**. **In that case, look for _Not Even Once: Failure Version_.

**3.) Danny can find her and bring her back and she can go through rehab and **succeed** and everyone lives **moderately** happily ever after. **In that case, look for _Not Even Once: Success Version_.

I can't decide what I want to do because as much as I love happy endings, I think this is really powerful if it just ends here. (It's very real!) So is failing at rehab, but people _have_ made it through. So, pick the ending you like best.

…

Everyone **MUST** go to this website! **www. montana meth. org** If anyone is too lazy to remove the spaces, there's a link in my profile. But I have personally SEEN the sick shit Meth does to people. _Watch the commercials, read the print ads, and look at the pictures! _

And by all means, **spread the word**!

Questions, comments, concerns? (Oh, reviews telling me I'm fucked up for writing this will be ignored completely, so if that's what you're going to say don't even bother reviewing.)


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